


Ravenwood

by Wonderlandleighleigh



Series: Welcome to Ravenwood [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen, Seasons 1-5, Self Indulgent As Fuck, but so much fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 05:58:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17913101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonderlandleighleigh/pseuds/Wonderlandleighleigh
Summary: “I’m Miranda Tyler,” she says, holding out a thin hand to shake. “Are you Sam or Dean?”“Dean,” he replies, taking the offered hand. “The older one. Also more handsome. Way more bad-ass.”“And so modest,” Miranda chuckles.A chance meeting doesn't change everything. But it helps, ever so slightly.





	Ravenwood

1.  
It doesn’t look like much from the outside.

Just a little storefront with a hanging wooden sign above the door with the word “Ravenwood” scratched into it in big block letters.

Dean sighs heavily. When his father had told him to go to Harlem, he’d daydreamed about what it could be for. Maybe the ghost of a sexy jazz singer needed to be pulled out of an old speaky easy.

Maybe...maybe Luke friggin’ Cage needed some help!

But no. Nope. Dean is here…

For books.

He pushes the door open sulkily, and a soft bell chimes above him and he freezes as he looks around, breathing in the smell of yellowed book pages. The shelves are packed tight with old tomes and dusty volumes. Ancient-looking weapons and shields hang from the walls, and there’s a tight path through the shop, around more piles of books and other odds and ends.

The counter seems to be the only clear space, though there’s no one behind it.

“Welcome to Ravenwood!” a muffled, chipper voice says from somewhere in the shop. “Please do let me know if I can help you find anything.”

Dean blinks and starts moving through the stacks and shelves, looking around for the owner of the kind, British-accent-tinged voice, almost tripping over a small end table that balances an antique lamp and even more books. “Uhm...I uh...I’m pickin’ up an order for John Winchester.”

Out of nowhere, a woman peeks around a shelf at him and he jumps back, just a little.

“Ah! You must be his son, then,” she beams.

He barely catches a glimpse of her as she whirls back around, long red waves swinging with her, and he follows her, avoiding more books; more strange items he doesn’t recognize.

The woman, who looks around his age, and a foot shorter, breezes behind the counter and lifts an enormous stack of books from behind her. She turns to him, settling the stack between them on the dark wood countertop, looking up at him with big, whiskey-colored eyes.

That he stares at for a little too long.

“This is it,” she says, and it shakes him from his unexpected paralysis.

“Good,” Dean blurts out. “Great. Thanks. Uhm….”

“I’m Miranda Tyler,” she says, holding out a thin hand to shake. “Are you Sam or Dean?”

“Dean,” he replies, taking the offered hand. “The older one. Also more handsome. Way more bad-ass.”

“And so modest,” Miranda chuckles as she punches a few numbers into her register to ring him up. “That’s two hundred.”

He nods, fishing out the wad of cash his father had handed to him before he’d set out for New York.

“Thank you,” she says softly as she settles the money in the register’s drawer. “D’you need a bag?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Dean says. “Not uh...not parked far.” He looks up, and then around at the shop, giving a low whistle. “So...so what is this place?”

“It’s a book shop,” Miranda tells him, frowning a little.

Dean snorts. “Well, yeah, but...it’s not just any bookshop. Clearly.”

“Well…” she says thoughtfully, leaning on the counter. “D’you know that bookshop Ray owns in Ghostbusters II?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a bit like that,” she grins. “We carry unusual texts for a small clientele.”

“So...your a hunter’s bookshop,” Dean surmises.

“Hunters...voodoo queens...white witches...the couple of Catholic priests who pop by. Worried mothers. We don’t discriminate. Well...that’s a bit of a lie. The shop’s warded against black witches, demons, vampires, that sort.”

“Smart,” Dean nods.

“Well, I’d like to live,” Miranda jokes as she wanders out from behind the counter again and heads back into the shelves. “It was very nice meeting you, Dean Winchester. Thank your father for his purchases, won’t you?”

“Uh….yeah,” Dean says, looking around him again. “I uh...I guess I’m gonna go.”

“Bye, then!” 

It takes him a while to get to the door, as he tries to catch another glimpse of the slight redhead.

2.

After Dad dies, he takes Sam.

It hasn’t changed.

Well, the bell on the door has, but everything else is pretty much the same, and Sam looks like he’s died and gone to heaven.

“What...how...how do you know about this place?” Sam asks, as he starts browsing through the stacks and shelves.

“Welcome to Ravenwood!” A voice says from nowhere,before Miranda pops up from ducking down under the counter. “How can I- Oh! Dean Winchester’s back. Hullo.”

“Hi, Miranda,” Dean grins, walking over. “Good to see you again.”

“Yes, well,” she smiles, a little flustered. “Suppose it is, isn’t it? What brings you in? Another shopping list for your dad?”

“Uh…” Dean shifts and sighs. “No. Actually...our dad passed away recently.”

Her face falls, and she reaches out for the hand he has settled on the counter, resting hers over it. “I’m so sorry.”

Dean gives her a weak grin. “Thanks. I uh...my brother’s a bit of a nerd. I figured I’d bring him by…”

“This place is amazing!” Sam cries from somewhere deep within the shop.

Miranda laughs softly.

“Yeah, he loves this stuff,” Dean grins sheepishly.

She grins back, and pats his hand, pausing for a moment and looking down. She lifts his hand and studies the bracelet on his wrist. “Mala beads?”

Dean nods. “Yeah. I uh...yeah. They were a gift from a Voodoo queen down south.”

“What’s a voodoo queen doing with a Tibetan symbol of impermanence?” Miranda asks, amused.

“She had layers,” Dean jokes, as they both laugh softly.

“They’re nice,” she says, setting his hand back down on the counter.

The touch of her hand to his is…

It feels different somehow.

Not bad different. Not in the way it feels when monster touch him, and not strange-but-good in the way it feels when random chicks do.

It’s just…

He can’t quite put his finger on it.

But it’s kinda good. It makes him feel warm, a little.

“There’s an entire section on Native American spirit summoning!” Sam cries. “This is awesome!”

***** 

They roll through Harlem a few months later, in search of information on why Sam is the way that he is, and not only does Miranda help them book hunt, but she hunkers down with them in the back room to research.

The back room is maybe more stuffed than the actual shop, aside from the long wooden table. Six chairs sit around it, three of the occupied by stacks of books and weapons.

They’re not getting anywhere, but they keep going, determined to find something.

Until the bell on the door chimes.

Miranda sighs softly and gets to her feet, stepping out into the shop. “Welcome to Raven- Oh it’s you.”

Dean and Sam look at each other, both slightly concerned as another voice - a charming tenor - rings through the building.

“Miss me, Red?”

She takes a moment to respond. “Yeah, not really, no.”

Sam snorts and goes back to his book, but Dean gets curious. He stands, stretches and glances out of the back room, watching Miranda move swiftly behind the counter, obviously in an attempt to put some distance between herself and the tall, thin blond man wandering around in front of the register.

“Such a tease, Miranda,” he says, leaning against the counter. “Why not a little kiss.”

“I don’t think so,” she says quickly.

Dean watches her cringe away, but she’s much smaller; too short and at an awkward angle to effectively punch the guy. She’s cornered, and this douche is obviously not getting the hint.

So he makes a decision, and tugs his flannel button-down off and rips the collar a little.

Sam clears his throat. “Dean, what-”

Dean waves him off and wanders into the main shop. “Hey, Babe,” he says casually. “I think you ripped my shirt.”

The man stands up straight, away from the counter and Miranda, who looks embarrassed and surprised and interested all at once, as her eyes take him in.

Dean smirks gives the other man a nod of his head. “Hey. Everything okay?”

“Fine!” Miranda squeaks. “Completely fine. This is- Dean, this is Aaron. Aaron, this is Dean.”

“Hey, man,” Dean grins. “Sorry to interrupt. Miranda gets a little impatient when she hasn’t seen me in a while, and sometimes my wardrobe pays the price.” He waggles his eyebrows just once, still grinning.

“Uh...you two are…”

“Together,” Miranda says quickly. “We’re...together. We have sex.”

“Great sex,” Dean brags. “Did you need anything from the shop? Anything we can help you find?”

“Well, I uh...no,” Aaron admits. “I was just here to see Miranda.”

Dean narrows his eyes, stepping up to the other man, looking him in the eyes. “Sweetheart, did you wanna see him?”

The response he gets is a quiet “no,” and he nods.

Aaron glowers at her, before looking back at Dean.

“Miranda says she doesn’t wanna see you, Aaron,” Dean says. “You gonna be a man about it and respect that? Or am I gonna have to throw you out the window?”

Aaron’s exit is swift, the door swinging open so hard that the bell’s ring is stunted, and Miranda deflates, relaxing finally.

“Remind me to give you an extra discount next time you need something,” she says. “And I owe you a shirt.”

“Nah, that was fun,” Dean smirks, balling up his shirt in his hands. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m a’right,” Miranda grins sheepishly. “Wish I’d been able to threaten throwing him out the window.”

“I can see how that might be a little hard to take seriously,” Dean chuckles. “You’re so tiny I could probably fit you in my pocket.”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Right. We should go help your brother.”

He takes a breath as she steps out from behind the counter again. “About that...I really appreciate it. We both do. This is above and behind, and you don’t have to be helping us like this.”

She smiles and takes his ripped shirt from him gently. “Well. Why don’t you take me to dinner, and we’ll call it even?”

Dean’s heart surprises the hell out of him by jumping so far into his throat that all he can do is nod, and watch as she walks off with his shirt.

He doesn’t ask for it back.

*****

“So how’d you wind up in the life?” Dean asks as they sit down in Sylvia’s Restaurant, just around the corner from Ravenwood.

Miranda takes a deep breath and shrugs. “It’s a long story.”

“Well, we haven’t even ordered yet, so I think we got time,” Dean smirks.

She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Well...as you can probably tell, I’m English.”

“Neeever woulda guessed.”

She laughs and reaches across the table to whap his arm playfully. “My mother is...was...part of a centuries-old organization dedicated to eliminating monsters. They’re very elite. They have their own academy, and I was sent there...against my father’s wishes. He died when I was very young, and he wanted me to be normal. But Mum...she’s dedicated to the whole monster-fighting thing.”

“That’s awesome,” Dean says.

“On paper, it all looks very flash, doesn’t it?” Miranda says sadly.

Dean watches her carefully. “Not so much.”

“Not so much,” Miranda agrees. “I did what they wanted me to for a long time. Followed every order, until...” she shrugs again. “Until it became very clear that the students weren’t being treated as people, but weapons. Just...blunt instruments to kill.”

He shakes his head, narrowing his eyes. “What happened?”

“My best friend and I were taken into a teacher’s study, and asked to fight to the death,” Miranda says simply, not looking at him.

“What?” Dean snaps, shocked. “Why?”

She takes a deep breath. “Because you never know when your allies will turn to enemies,” she says, obviously quoting something she’d heard many times before.

“Did you do it?”

Miranda shakes her head. “We looked each other in the eyes, and we ran. Literally, we ran through the school and out the door, and we disappeared. Lived on the streets in London for a while, before scrounging enough money to come here...where we met Julius Ravenwood.”

“I know that name,” Dean says softly. “He was uh...he was an old hunter. Like...really old. He worked with my dad a little when I was a little kid.”

She nods and grins. “He was so kind. He took us in. We worked his shop, we all lived in the flat above it...and when he died, he left the shop to me, and I run it just the way he did.”

“The people you’re running from,” Dean asks warily. “They still after you?”

Miranda shakes her head. “Not for about a year now. We received a very formal letter, telling us that we wouldn’t have to worry about them coming after us, but we’re never to set foot in England again, else we’ll be killed.”

“And what happened to your friend?”

She lights up them, smiling widely. “Maddy! We went our separate ways a while ago. She wanted out. She lives in Manhattan now. We get lunch sometimes.”

Dean grins, and sits back. “Huh. Hell of a story.”

“Don’t tell it much,” Miranda shrugs, grinning softly. “Most people don’t ask.”

He grins wider, and leans in. “I’m glad I did.”

3.

“I can’t believe you sold your soul to a crossroads demon,” Miranda shakes her head as she goes around the shop, pulling every book off the shelves that has to do with crossroads deals. “What is wrong with you?”

She gets no answer.

“And why on earth did you wait all year to come to me?”

Still no answer as she carries the stack to the counter and sets it down with a thump that echoes through the first floor.

Dean leans against counter and doesn’t look her in the eyes.

“Oi,” she snaps, tugging on his shirt to get his attention. “Dean.”

When he does look into her eyes, they’re worried, and sad.

“I had to protect my brother,” he says. His voice is quiet but firm. “That’s my job.”

“And who’s going to protect you?” Miranda asks softly, still holding his gaze, until he can’t look at her anymore.

“Well, we’ve got a month,” she says. “Let’s get started.”

*****

Sam helps of course, and Bobby shows up, too, but in the end, they don’t really find anything.

Until.

“Right,” Miranda says, holding up a book. “Says that if your soul already belongs to someone else, the demon no longer has claim on the soul, and has to bargain with that other person, and it can be anything. Another demon, a human...a cat, anything.”

Dean looks up. “How do we do it?”

“Ritual sex,” Miranda responds factually.

All three men stare at her like she’s crazy.

She shrugs. “That’s what it says.”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Bobby says, awkwardly. “What’s involved in ritual sex?”

Miranda looks back down at the book. “Candles. Chanting. Blood. Sometimes an audience.”

“Wow,” Dean proclaims. “No.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Dean.”

Dean grits his teeth and points to the corner of the shop, away from the back room. “Sidebar.”

Sam huffs and follows him, raising his arms in frustration. “Dean -”

“No,” Dean snaps. “Not doing this.”

“Dean, it could save your life, and...and you like Miranda,” Sam points out, bewildered. “She’s nice, and she’s gorgeous, and you...you even once said that if we weren’t hunters-”

“That’s why I can’t,” Dean shakes his head. “Because I care about her. And it wouldn’t just be a role in the sheets. Not only would the sex actually mean something, but we’d walk away with her owning my soul. Possibly forever, to play keep-away from Lilith. So no. Okay? Just...no.”

Sam nods, watching his brother warily. “Okay.” He pats Dean’s shoulder. “Okay. We’ll find another way.”

They don’t.

4.

She literally throws an entire bottle of holy water at him, still corked, and it hits him in the arm before falling to the wooden shop floor with a dull thud/glug.

Dean blinks rapidly. “You know, it’s funny?” he grins at her. “That’s never happened before.”

Miranda yanks a sawed off shotgun from under the counter and points it at him.

“Hey,” Dean says quickly, stepping back. “Hey, it’s me. It’s really me, Miranda. I swear.”

“How do I know it’s really you?” she asks quickly, backing away.

He takes out a knife and takes a deep breath. “By the time I get through convincing everybody, I swear I’m gonna like Edward Scissorhands.” He slices lightly into his arm, enough to draw blood, hissing from the pain. “And you already christo’d me. I promise. It’s me.”

Miranda shakes her head in disbelief, walking from behind the counter and up to him to give him a hug, her arms winding around his neck. “How?”

“That’s a really long story.” His arms wrap around her tightly, and he closes his eyes, enjoying the feeling of having her close.

So much so that he doesn’t really think about it when he leans in, pressing his lips to hers in a soft kiss.

One that she returns.

One that doesn’t stop, as they stumble their way up the stairs and through her small but cheery apartment, towards her bedroom, and into her bed.

*****

Miranda’s version of afterglow involves as many books on angels as she can find.

She lounges on the bed, naked under a thin bed sheet as she reads, and he tugs his boxers on, pacing the small bedroom, looking around at her things. Mostly old books and ornate little antique boxes.

“I didn’t even think they were real,” Dean says.

“Well, universal balance being what it is, there’s demons so it stands to reason there are angels,” Miranda shrugs, glancing up at him.

He sits down on the edge of the bed, and she leans over, brushing her fingers gently over the handprint on his arm.

“Touched by an angel,” Miranda mutters.

Dean snorts softly. “Somethin’ like that.” He glances at her and brushes her hair away from her face. “We uh...we probably shouldn’t have done this.”

“What, have sex?” Miranda asks, lifting an eyebrow. “Says the man who started it?”

He grins sheepishly and nods. “Yeah. It’s just...I’m not around a lot. And I’d like to be, but...with all this, and Sam’s acting weird…”

She leans in and kisses him softly and gently. “We’re not children, Dean. We both have our lives. If you need to go, then it’s okay. I’ll keep researching, and-”

“I don’t want to go,” Dean tells her firmly. “This...with you, it’s...I don’t know. I haven’t felt this way about someone in a long time. It’s part of why I voted no on the the ritual sex soul-owning thing before I went in the pit. I think I want this to be more. And I don’t know if it can be.”

He closes his eyes as she strokes his jaw, and hopes maybe one day he won’t have to leave.

Maybe.

Dean pushes all of the books off the bed, and tugs at her sheet. He has Miranda gasping through two more orgasms, and she kisses him through his. Eventually, Sam starts calling, and Dean knows it’s time to go.

*****

“Gimme that.”

Dean makes a grab for the copy of Route 666 in Miranda’s hands, but she turns away, stepping further down the counter as she keeps reading.

“It’s mine,” she teases. “I’m reading it.”

He gives her a pained look as Sam chuckles from behind the shelves.

“C’mon. I’m like full-frontal in that thing,” Dean whines.

Miranda smirks playfully. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Dean groans.

5.

“Miranda, Castiel. Cas this is Miranda. She’s uh...she’s my…” 

Both Miranda and Castiel turn to him, looking expectant, and his mouth moves, but no words come out. He stands there like that for a long, long moment, before eventually disappearing into the back room. 

“Useless,” Miranda marvels, shaking her head. She turns to Castiel and grins tightly. “Hullo. Very nice to meet you.” 

Castiel shakes her hand. “I’ve heard much about you.” 

“Same.” 

***** 

“I need a favor.”

Sam calls late one night, which is odd. Not just because it’s late, but he doesn’t generally call. Not unless Dean’s asked him to.

“Okay,” Miranda says slowly, softly, sitting up in bed. She doesn’t bother doesn’t on a light, just waits.

“Look...if...if this whole thing with Lucifer and the cage goes the way I hope it goes, I’m not coming back,” Sam says clumsily. “I...I need you to take care of Dean.”

She closes her eyes, ready to lecture him on how she’s a poor replacement for the only living family Dean has left, and that Dean only lets people take care of him when he wants them to. “Sam-”

“He loves you,” Sam blurts out. “He’s in love with you, and he’ll probably never say it, and he’d probably kill me if he knew I was telling you, but...but he does. He loves you so much. He’s gonna need you when I’m gone.”

“I…” Miranda wipes tears from her eyes. “A’right. Yeah. I’ll look after him.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

*****

It rains buckets the day after the world doesn’t end. All of New York City is engulfed in an endless downpour, causing lights to flicker in old buildings and power to give way. Basements flood, and people rush from one destination to the next, doing their best to stay dry.

Miranda doesn’t mind. It reminds her a little of home, so it’s a nice change from how warm May has been.

She pushes the door to an old shop down the street open and steps in, shaking her umbrella before stepping further inside. It’s warm, and the lighting is comfortably low; the smell of incense and patchouli permeate her sense, and help her muscles, tense in the rain, relax a little.

Behind the counter is an older woman, wearing a beautiful orange shawl around her deep cocoa shoulders.

“Hullo, Talula,” Miranda says with a smile.

“Miranda, you are gettin’ in just under the wire,” Talula tells her with a grin. “I wasn’t gonna stay open much longer. You were supposed to be here to pick up your things an hour ago.”

“Got busy at the shop,” she says sheepishly. “Which is odd, but...well, I suppose with all of the strange happenings round the world, there’s more of an interest in what we do.”

Talula grins and starts packing up Miranda’s purchases. “Your cat's eye shells, goofer dust, some fresh holy water - just made it in the tub yesterday. I can’t believe you used all your supplies up so fast.”

“Well, when the Winchesters hang around your door, the bad things tend to come knocking at it,” Miranda grumbles. “Bloody angels. Bloody demons.”

“You heard from them at all?” Talula asks gently.

“No,” Miranda pouts softly. “Not a word. Bobby called. Said he wouldn’t be surprised if I heard from Dean soon, but…”

“Sam didn’t make it.”

“No, he didn’t,” Miranda says sadly. She takes a long breath and grins as she pays her tab. Thanks for the refill, Talula. Stay dry tonight.”

“You too, honey,” Talula says, handing over the cloth shopping bag full of supplies.

Miranda takes a deep breath and braces herself before stepping back out into the rain. As she walks back to the bookshop and her apartment, she opens her umbrella over her head and smiles at people as they walk past.

Something she’s always loved about Harlem is how everyone knows everyone. It’s comforting.

She pulls her keys from her purse as she approaches the shop, not really looking where she’s going. When she clips someone in the shoulder, she yelps and nearly fumbles both her bag and the umbrella, but manages to juggle and course correct enough to hold onto her things.

“So sorry,’ she calls above the rain. “Very clumsy. Are you-” Miranda stops as she finally looks up, squinting in the rain at the man in front of her.

“Dean?”

He huffs softly, wiping a hand down his face to clear some of the rainwater. “You locked the door,” he says. “I don’t have a key.”

Miranda smiles sadly at him, lifting her umbrella to try and shield them both. “We’ll have to fix that, then.”

Dean takes the umbrella, easily holding it over both of them as she unlocks the door, and lets them both in with the chime of the bell. He shakes it out a little, before closing it and dumping it into the metal canister by the door and then turning to her, shivering a little.

“A bit cold for May,” she comments, rubbing at her arms after she sets her bag on the counter.

Dean swallows hard. “We stopped the apocalypse.”

Miranda nods, watching him carefully; the rainwater that drops from his chin. The droop of his eyes. His pale, grief-stricken face.

“But I lost Sam,” he admits quietly. “And...and he…” he swallows and looks down at his boots.

They let those words hang in the air for a long moment as rainwater continues to puddle onto the hardwood floors.

Miranda bites her lip. “There’s a nice coffee shop down the street. I bought a brick of their dark roast the other day. D’you wanna come upstairs and have a cup?” 

Dean swallows, managing a nod as she holds her hand out to him. He takes it and lets himself be led towards the stairs. 

Before she can start leading him up to the apartment above, he lets go of her hand and wraps his arms around her tightly from behind, his face buried against the crook between her shoulder and neck.

Miranda holds his arm tightly with one hand and reaches back to strokes the side of his head gently, as she feels him start to breathe heavily; an obvious attempt to stave off a sob.

“I know, Dean,” she says softly. “I’m so sorry.” 

It takes him a moment to respond, and when he does, his voice is small; almost afraid. “Can I stay?” 

She leans back against him, pressing her lips to his temple. “You know the answer is yes.” 

He nods shakily and stands up straight, taking a breath, loosening his arms around her. “Coffee?” 

Miranda leads him up the stairs, shutting off the shop lights as they go.

END


End file.
